Social Scrutiny As human beings it’s only natural for us to make certain decisions in our life in order to fulfill desires within ourselves. It seems silly to make a voluntary decision to do something that doesn’t go hand in hand with what we truly want. It’s quite astonishing to see the amount of weight social pressure has on our crucial life decisions. We are a product of our environment and so our surroundings must have an effect on us to some degree. Even though the decision that was made could offer less value to the life of the individual, they still end up making the choice while being aware of the consequences. This poor decision making process was apparent in the story, “The Boarding House”, where the main male character, Mr. Doran, is faced with a life-changing decision and complies with the wishes of social pressures although it is not what he himself wants. By analyzing Mr. Doran’s character one can conclude that despite someone’s true desire, they end up making choices that they know isn’t what isn’t what is best for them due to be socially accepted by the people around them. We live in a world where so much importance is placed on how we fit into society’s norms by conforming. Having society’s approval is a strong hold to have: “She was so sure she would win. To begin with she had all the weight of social opinion on her side: she was an outraged mother.” (40) Mrs. Mooney knew that she had a strong hold over Mr. Doran because she knew that he would choose to do the honorable thing deemed by the Mrs. Mooney, Polly’s brother, the people living in the boarding house, and his employer and marry her daughter, Polly, after sleeping with her. Mr. Doran would be greatly looked down by society had he chosen to walk away from Polly. Mr. Doran is a thoughtful human being who is capable of making choices for himself. With that being said, he still finds himself in situations where he is compromising what we wants for what society wants. Although it is true that Mr. Doran can just walk away from the fact that he has sleep with Polly, he hesitates because he feels the pull of society holding him back. Mrs. Mooney is not one to let him forget that by not taking responsibility “he had simply abused her hospitality.” (40) It would look really bad on Mr. Doran if he didn’t do what was seen as the right thing to do. It would seem as though he had taken advantage of such generous people. None of this would matter if the characters in the story were completely detached to what the outsiders looking in thought, but they so deeply did. Although it is very clear that Mr. Doran doesn’t want to take responsibility for his actions, his final decision to conform to Mrs. Mooney’s decision doesn’t go hand in hand with his desires: “He longed to ascend through the roof and fly away to another country where he would never hear again of his trouble, and yet a force pushed him downstairs step by step.” (42) It is clearly evident what he really wants and that is to just run away from this mess that he has gotten himself into. The decision that Mr. Doran made to marry Polly will completely change his life as he knows it and not for the better in his eyes. That same exact decision that he makes for himself will do nothing to the number of judgmental people who he will feel humiliated by if he goes against their preconceived notion of the right thing to do. The lack of courage for Mr. Doran to stand up for what he truly wants will be the reason why he must reap the consequences. Logically he would have no one to blame but himself because he is the one making the choice. It almost seems as though there is a gun pointed to his head by Mrs. Mooney and society to get him to do what they want. There are certain situations where we feel helpless when it comes to going against the grain of our desires: “He stood up to put his coat and waistcoat, more